Erised
by coxorangepippin
Summary: Victor Nikiforov, the Durmstrang Champion, died in the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament of 1792. Years later, Yuuri Katsuki discovers a strange mirror that allows him to reconnect with his lost love. This is the story behind Albus Dumbledore's warning to Harry of the danger of spending too long in front of the mirror in The Philosopher's Stone. A oneshot Hogwarts AU.


Yuuri walked purposefully through the moonlit corridor, his footsteps muted against the hard stone floor, his robe sighing as it fluttered behind him. The summer air, sweetened by the perfume of night-blooming plants, was warm, disturbed by only the lightest of breezes and the occasional splash from the distant Black Lake as the mermaids leapt from the water in one of their endless games, safe from the prying eyes of students under the cover of darkness.

Yuuri continued walking, his whole being focussed only on his destination. The torches weren't lit, but the moonlight slanting through the high mullioned windows was as bright as day, illuminating the tapestries that lined the wall, painting their vivid colours in silver and black; the portraits, their colours also drained, nodded solemnly at Yuuri as he passed. One of them, an ancient and weathered man with a kneazle draped around his shoulders like a scarf, looked up as Yuuri passed and spoke in his gravelly voice, "Professor Katsuki! A fine night for perambulating, a fine night!"

Yuuri nodded and smiled, not pausing in his stride. The thought entered his head that it was very different to wander the corridors as a teacher, permitted to be out at all hours, than it had been as a student, sneaking out for a midnight rendezvous at the Black Lake, where the ship had stood…

When Yuuri reached the suit of armour at the end of the corridor, he knew he was close. A small black cat approached him silently, making him pause; it wound briefly around his ankles, purring like a miniature thunderstorm, and then continued on its nightly explorations.

There, at the end of the corridor; there was the door, ancient and nondescript. Yuuri approached, his footsteps quickening as he drew closer, and finally he closed his hand around the cold iron of the handle, pulling the door open, and stepped inside.

The abandoned classroom was not dusty, though it had been when Yuuri had discovered it two weeks ago whilst attempting to find an errant Hufflepuff, who had been missing at curfew and sparked a castle-wide alarm; they had been discovered unharmed in the greenhouses, apparently unaware that it had even grown dark, let alone that it was hours past curfew.

The vaulted ceiling was high, and the windows were large, allowing the moonlight free access to the huge, ornate mirror that stood in the centre of the room, bouncing off the strange inscription around the edge and silvering the glass.

As Yuuri approached, his heartbeat thrumming, a corner of his mind noted that he ought to try and work out what the inscription said one day, as it might give him a clue as to the origin of this wondrous artefact. Yuuri kept his eyes averted as he approached and sat down in front of the mirror, folding his legs under himself in a tailor's seat, and settling his robes around him more comfortably.

Then, finally, he looked up, and any thought he may have had of further examining the mirror instantly vanished.

In front of him, so close that Yuuri felt his breath catch in his throat, there was a young man, his long silver hair tied behind his head, his clear blue eyes shining as he smiled his heart shaped smile.

Yuuri felt his heart contract with pain and a terrible joy. Victor was still wearing the blood-red Durmstrang uniform he had worn all those years ago, the day they had first met, and he was smiling with the pure happiness that Yuuri knew he was the only one to ever see, the only one to ever provoke.

Yuuri smiled back, his heart breaking again as it had done every night since he had found the mirror, and reached out to trace the lips that he had kissed a thousand times, so long ago now.

And, as he did every night, Yuuri tried to repress the terrible memories of the last time he had kissed Victor, the last day, the terrible final moments…

 _Victor had been so tall, so proud, so strong as he had kissed Yuuri before the Third Task, before being called away. Yuuri had run to the stands, sitting next to Yuuko and Takeshi, and talking to them before hearing the crowd hush as the commentator announced the start of the event._

 _'The Champions', he told them, 'will be facing a variety of magical beasts, and they will not know which until they step into the arena!' The crowd had cheered, pennants in the colours of the three schools snapping in the warm breeze, as the first two Champions had faced an acromantula and a troll in turn, both acquitting themselves well, both clearly warned in advance (against all the rules of the tournament)._

 _Yuuri felt his heart seize with terror. Victor, he knew, had refused the help he had been offered, stating with iron clad certainty that the point of the tournament was not to cheat, but to strive and to win with pride and honesty._

 _And then, it had been Victor's turn, and the audience were suddenly shielded behind one-way-sight charms that popped into existence as they watched, casting a slight haze as though on a hot summer's day between the stands and the arena._

 _Victor had stepped into the arena, so young, so beautiful, and had stood facing the empty ground in front of him._

 _And then his opponent was released, and Victor looked at it in shock, straight in its enormous yellow eye…_

The next memories were a blur. _Victor falling, his red robes splayed across the ground like a bloody wound. The chaos as the cockatrice had leapt at the judges, the subsequent carnage as one student after another had been caught by its gaze as it ran behind the one-way-sight charms, leaving a final death toll of twenty eight before it had finally been subdued by the handlers._

 _And Yuuri's utter incomprehension, his shock and disbelief. He had known champions died in this tournament, known that Victor had been prepared for that eventuality, but Victor was… He was Victor. So strong, so vital, so entirely alive that death seemed something that could never take him, could never penetrate the shining joy that hung around him like a patronus._

 _Yuuri hadn't even been able to go to the funeral, which was held in Durmstrang, and which would not allow any Briton access after they orchestrated the death of one of their own._

Yuuri shook himself, wrenching his mind back to the present. In a low voice, he began to tell Victor of the day's happenings, of the two second years who had accidentally set fire to his Charms classroom, and the fourth year Ravenclaw who had read ahead in her textbooks and tried human transfiguration on herself in order to get ahead for the next year. Her spectacular peacock tail, Yuuri told Victor, would be gone by the next morning, but he suspected that the teasing would continue long beyond that.

And Victor smiled, and laughed silently behind the glass, his eyes shining and his hair dancing behind him.

Yuuri told him that tomorrow, the students were going home for the holidays, and that he could come more often. Every day, maybe, if Victor wanted.

Victor's youthful, unchanged face kept smiling, and he reached a hand out towards Yuuri as though in supplication.

ooooooooooo

The next night, Yuuri returned, retracing his steps through the now silent castle, passing the same portraits and the same armour, his steps hurrying along without regard for the nightly silence.

And there was the door, and the high windows, and the mirror….

And there was Victor, smiling again, the echo of the love that had never died and would never let Yuuri go.

Yuuri sat down, his eyes hungry, his robes swirling about him in a soft pool of fabric.

Yuuri reached out for the glass, smiling, and reflected that with no classes to teach, he could stay here as long as he wanted, and that now not even the morning sun could tear him away against his will.

ooooooooo

When the school caretaker found Professor Katsuki a month after the end of term, his body was cold. He was in a small abandoned classroom, laid out on the floor with his hand outstretched towards an old, ornate mirror, as though trying to reach into it and draw something out. His robes had collected dust, as though he hadn't moved for several days.

After the funeral, the caretaker had told the headmaster of the mirror, and it had been moved to a new location, where no errant soul could stumble upon it. The story of the death of Yuuri Katsuki had been passed down from Headmaster to Headmaster, a cautionary tale of the terrible power of the Mirror of Erised.

And half a world away, as close as the other side of the mirror, Yuuri Katsuki, young and whole again, had finally closed the distance between himself and Victor, and their tears had mingled as they had kissed, and laughed, and held each other.

 _You think the dead we love ever truly leave us?_ – Albus Dumbledore, The Prisoner of Azkaban, by J. K. Rowling


End file.
